Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

EVENTS

WND: Muslims Brotherhood Infiltrated the Government!

Ah yes, the usual hysterical and completely unsupported assertions from the Worldnetdaily — combined, of course, with an ad for a book they’re making money from, because it isn’t news if they can’t sell you some junk vaguely related to it. They say a retired general has “confirmed” that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the Obama administration.

Retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Tom McInerney, who served as both assistant vice chief of staff and commander in chief of U.S. Air Forces Europe, has surprised interviewers on a radio program by confirming the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood inside the U.S. government.

On Planet Wingnuttia, confirmed means asserted with no evidence whatsoever, as you can see further down the adverticle:

Then he added, “We’ve got Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. government today.”

Asked by the talk-show hosts for their names, he said, “I haven’t got their names exactly but there’s a list of them, at least 10 or 15 of them in the U.S. government.”

He cited the organization’s influence in Homeland Security and the secretary of state’s office under Clinton, where Abedin has worked.

“Her parents are Muslim Brotherhood. And her intuitions are in that direction,” he said.

“There are a whole host of people in this government.”

He said Islam experts Frank Gaffney or Claire Lopez would have the details.

He doesn’t have their names, but there’s a list…of names? What would the list be of, if not names? Joe McCarthy would be so proud of this.

Comments

Just watch. If they ever do come up with a list of the supposed Muslim Brotherhood infiltrators at least one of the names will be of someone who isn’t Muslim, most likely a Sikh or Hindu, or perhaps a Christian Arab.

Of course there’s a list! It’s in the President’s Desk, right-hand side, duh!!

It is in the same folder as the “Plot to Get Rich by Starting A War In Irack??? By Blowing Up the Werld Trade Senter” (written all in crayon), and the neatly typed “Using Contrails to Distribute Chemicals”, and the yellowed “Report on Alien Artifacts and Specimen Dissection (Area 51)”.

I see that the smear campaign against former Clinton aide Huma Abedin, who is a Muslim, continues. Apparently, the fact that she’s married to a jew cuts no ice as obviously that must be part of her cover, not. I’m rather disappointed in retired General McInerney whose commentary as a military “expert” during operation Desert Storm I found enlightening. But then, he’s a retired Air Force general. My opinion of Air Force generals is that they should never be appointed as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or as top commanders of any country’s military, given the egregious examples of Richard Myers and Dan Halutz.

Shorter McInerney: “THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THE GOVERNMENT WHO ARE NOT LIKE US.”

I wonder what happens when a Secret Muslin (who has swarthy skin, a foreign-sounding name, made no attempt to hide his Muslinism when he was being hired, and might not even be a Muslin) is wandering around inside Our Government and bumps in to one of the many Agents of International Communism who is also there. Do they just nod at each other, or does the Commie look down on the Muslin because the Commie had to create a whole fake life and cover simply to infiltrate Our Government?

SLC – may I highlight two sentences in your post above:
a) “I see that the smear campaign against former Clinton aide Huma Abedin, who is a Muslim,”
b) “My opinion of Air Force generals is that they should never be appointed as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or as top commanders of any country’s military, given the egregious examples of Richard Myers and Dan Halutz.”

Nope no smearing people because they belong to a certain genus going on there.
Nothing to see here. Move along please!

There are two ways to build a sculpture of an elephant, start with nothing and add everything that looks like an elephant or start with everything and chip away everything not an elephant. If you take the State Department, DHS and the military and chip away all the light skinned people with last names from the Mayflower Compact that still leaves a lot of potential Muslim Brotherhood members.

In what universe does the chihuahua live in? I make a factual statement that Ms. Abadin is a Muslim and that Myers and Halutz were incompetent and he barks ruf, ruf, ruf. I thought I was decrying the bigotry against Ms. Abadin but apparently not in the chihuahua’s spectral kingdom.

I freely admit to be prejudiced against Air Force officers, probably as a consequence of my exposure to them during AFROTC in college. A most unimpressive bunch I must say. There are also the shenanigans at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs which are well documented by Chris Rodda. I’m not even sure that a separate Air Force arm in the US Military is really necessary any more as the strategic branch has been subsumed by drones and missiles. Each of the other 2.5 services have their own air force.

So, there are 10 or 15 members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the US Federal government

You don’t understand. It isn’t the quantity, its their amazing powers. First, its 10 or 15, but when they each recruit a new member, and they recruit new members, and so forth and so forth, well, pretty soon you’re getting into some pretty big numbers. Its like a big Amway thing except they don’t come around to your door to try and sell you soap or something.

SLC – now you’ve got up to ‘b’, can you see why complaining about baseless smears in statement a) is undermined by statement b), a frankly admitted smearing of a whole genus of people, completely without basis?
Sheesh. Do you get your students to write all your lectures for you too?
Dingo

Isn’t it a bit rude to refer to people without using the usernames they’ve actually chosen?

(Yeah, I know dingos are a wee bit larger than chihuahuas and rather different canids too but c’mon, be the bigger dog.)

@7. colnago80 : My grandpa was in their force. Not a general but still. That branch of our armed services ids made up of individuals just like the others.

@17. Larry : Its neither “quantity” nor “amazing powers” – its the fact that hello, they are flippin’ terrorist douchecanoes in dangerosuly high positions of power that enable them to betray and cause enormous suffering for who knows how many innocent people.

Or would be *if* we accept tehproposition that these accusations are correct.

Are they?

I dunno.

Insufficient &, okay, rather dubious evidence – but they should be checked out nonetheless because the implications if they *are* correct are extremely serious.

If the claims are laughable it won’t take too long to prove it. If they aren’t , well, damn right Ms. Abadin and whoever else need to be prevented from causing any harm.

*IF* there actually is a list of names then it needs to be given to the appropriate counter-terrorism agencies immediately without any grandstanding or politicking or rubbish.

If whoever the WND nut is is worried well xie can write and keep a copy or fifty in safe boxes or with confidants or whatever.

But if this is real (I suspect it ain’t) then the people who can and know how to best act need to know right now and failure to do so is a complete betrayal of the USA.

Lets get it all out in the open pronto.

Or at minimum into the hands of actual experts who can and are authorised to act even quicker.

(& no, I’m not going to say I know what “action” may be required – that’s not my job. Whatever the appropriate folks decide needs to be done bout this *if* the WND is right, needs doing. Probably, I’d say.)

Retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Tom McInerney, who served as both assistant vice chief of staff and commander in chief of U.S. Air Forces Europe, has surprised interviewers on a radio program by confirming the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood inside the U.S. government.

Sure, because the best way to defeat a group inimical to US interests whose members have infiltrated the federal government* is not to quietly gather evidence and identify them but to assert on extreme right-wing radio that there are 10 or 15 (“a host”) of them.

At least if your name is Tom McInanery. (Yes, I’m being incivil…)

* I wonder when the General will get around to infiltration of state governments.

Actually, the sobriquet chihuahua was assigned to dingo by the banned Don Williams. He and dingo use to have some amusing back and forths. And I used to comment here using the nom de plume SLC1 but am now using a different email provider (gmail) with a different nom de plume colnago80 (I own a Colnage 1980 model professional racing bicycle, or at least it was at the time; now it’s an antique and no professional racer would be caught dead on it).

doesn’t seem to raise any red flags to me. Married to Weiner, aide to Hilary, it all reads reasonable although scant info really.

Of course, its not clear that she is actually being targeted by U.S. Air Force Gen (ret.) Tom McInerney or onhis suppsoed listof names unknown and could have absolutely nothing to do with his claims aside from erroneous speculation here and no doubt elsewhere.

What makes you name her before anyone else or jump to the possibly even probably false conclusion she’s one of the many names on this list? (Previous rumours and conspiracy theories only?)

However, Dingojack is his username and colnago80 is yours and unless there’s a particular good reason to use a nickname for somebody and they appreciate it ain’t it bad manners to do that?

I don’t think either of ya want to be called what each of ya call each other. So why not drop it and just use usernames as they choose? Just to cheese each other off some which does no good and makes no valid points and potentially confuses lurkers?

SLC (#20) – and he falls back on flailing around with irrelevancies. Classic SLC.
Stevo – be careful or I’ll start naming you after my garden gnome, Fuck-knuckle Miseryguts*. :)
Still – thank you for your concerns over tone, be assured they will be given every bit of the consideration and thought they deserve.
Dingo
——-
* No, I didn’t name it. The person who gave it to me did. It was a miserable looking gnome eyeing the sky balefully.

StevoR : Free West Papua, free Tibet, let the Chagossians return!“Insufficient &, okay, rather dubious evidence – but they should be checked out nonetheless because the implications if they *are* correct are extremely serious. If the claims are laughable it won’t take too long to prove it. If they aren’t , well, damn right Ms. Abadin and whoever else need to be prevented from causing any harm.”
Exactly. Their “insufficient &, okay, rather dubious evidence” has to be checked. To keep us safe.

By the way, I told them you’re a Muslin. And in the Muslin Brotherhood.

Good luck.

“What makes you name her before anyone else or jump to the possibly even probably false conclusion she’s one of the many names on this list?”
“He cited the organization’s influence in Homeland Security and the secretary of state’s office under Clinton, where Abedin has worked.” (emphasis mine)

d.c.wilson“Hasn’t Huma Abedin sufferred enough being married to Anthony Weiner?”
“You tweet all these other girls, but you never tweet me.”

“Why do they need to keep dragging her name through the mud?”
Because they can. Paranoia never goes away. She can run, but she can’t hide…from scared old white people.

“She’s not even working for the federal government any more.”
You can get the White House out of the Muslin, but you can’t get the Muslin out of the White House.*

What makes you name her before anyone else or jump to the possibly even probably false conclusion she’s one of the many names on this list? (Previous rumours and conspiracy theories only?)

Abedin is mentioned by name in the WND article:

The book confirms the Obama administration may have exposed national security information through Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, who has deep personal and family associations with the Muslim Brotherhood.

*IF* there actually is a list of names then it needs to be given to the appropriate counter-terrorism agencies immediately without any grandstanding or politicking or rubbish.

Which should make it obvious to you that there is no list of names. Because if there were, they would either make the list public or they would shut up about it until an investigation had been completed.

It’s similar to those wingnut claims about having a secret video in which someone reveals their true colors, like the mythical Michelle Obama “hate whitey” tape. If they actually had such a tape, they’d put in on YouTube already and let it speak for itself.

I should point out that the MB is not even recognized as a terrorist organization by any Western nation (due to their annoying habit of denouncing terrorism and not practicing any), so it’s not clear what there would be to investigate anyway. “Political beliefs I disagree with” is still protected by the 1st Amendment last I checked. There would have to be something more going on.

In search of more enlightenment about Huma Abedin’s alleged close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, I sought out Wikipedia. There I learned that, at the time Bachmann and others first voiced the “Muslim Brotherhood” slur (June 2012), a Senator stated that “The letter and the report offer not one instance of an action, a decision or a public position that Huma has taken while at the State Department that would lend credence to the charge that she is promoting anti-American activities within our government.”

And then there’s a Forbes article from August 2013 which proposes that the way to understand Huma Abedin is to remember that she’s married to Anthony Weiner — who, as the article so insightfully reminds us, is a politician.

It then goes off on a tirade about Al Gore. I didn’t stick with it any farther than that, so I missed whatever further “perals of wisdom” it contained.

(The misspelling is not in the article, but is nonetheless intentional.)